\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sinn F\u00e9in Education Spokesperson Se\u00e1n Crowe, TD, has welcomed a proposed 25% cut in the fees barrister\u2019s charge for Government work, as well as the proposal to introduce a more transparent pricing system that\u00a0will hopefully\u00a0reduce legal fees to the State.<\/span><\/p>\n Describing the changes as \u201clong overdue\u201d, Deputy Crowe said that plans by the State Claims Agency to cut legal charges by up to 25 per cent in a new system which will set maximum fee limits for specific elements of work performed by barristers must be implemented without delay.<\/span><\/p>\n Deputy Crowe said: <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe State Claims Agency, which deals with personal injury and property damage claims against 54 State Bodies aims to have in place\u00a0a scheme which would reduce the pay of Barristers by mid-November.\u00a0This follows a similar initiative two years ago which the Agency claims\u00a0will\u00a0cuts fees between 20 and 25 per cent.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe massively excessive fees paid to barristers and solicitors over the past decade and\u00a0beyond should have been capped by the previous Governments. The Tribunals into planning and corrupt payments to politicians\u00a0became a \u201cgravy train\u201d that cost the State and its tax payers hundreds of millions in legal fees.\u00a0We know from a breakdown of\u00a0the fees paid out, that it also\u00a0made multi millionaires of many people working in the legal profession.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOne of the worst examples of this flawed system was the money that was paid to the legal profession under the Residential Institutions Redress Board, which was established to compensate the survivors of residential abuse. In 2010, \u20ac157m had been paid in legal fees to barristers and solicitors who worked on behalf of the victims of institutional abuse which was more than 15% of all the money paid out as part of the Redress Scheme for thousands of people who suffered\u00a0horrific\u00a0sexual and physical abuse in Industrial Schools and other Institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis was never what the Redress Board was supposedly to be about. <\/span><\/p>\n “The millions spent in processing claims\u00a0while many victims got a pittance\u00a0added to the sense of \u00a0hurt\u00a0 and\u00a0\u00a0should have\u00a0 went directly\u00a0to the victims and their families.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI hope these changes signal a new approach and\u00a0will ensure that\u00a0the excessive amounts of money paid to barristers in the past from the ‘State\u00a0purse’\u00a0will never again be repeated.\u201dENDS<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a017 August 2012 Sinn F\u00e9in Education Spokesperson Se\u00e1n Crowe, TD, has welcomed a proposed 25% cut in the fees barrister\u2019s charge for Government work, as well as the proposal to introduce a more transparent pricing system that\u00a0will hopefully\u00a0reduce legal fees to the State. Describing the changes as \u201clong overdue\u201d, Deputy Crowe said that plans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}